


Unexpected Lessons

by Airmid



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03e11 Mystery Spot, Light Angst, M/M, Sam Winchester is Not Okay, Trickster Gabriel (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-24 18:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22322353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airmid/pseuds/Airmid
Summary: In which Sam learns the wrong lesson and Gabriel tries to figure out how this whole fiasco went south.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 85





	Unexpected Lessons

* * *

  
  
Things have become more, well, dissociative he figures the term is, around fifty days ago. Christ, had it been that long already? And that’s not adding in all the ones before that point. He rolls over, hearing Heat of the Moment blaring, his brother singing along loudly and he manages to not just scream. If he starts that now he is highly sure he won’t be able to stop.

So instead, he pulls his knife from under the pillow and puts it through the radio. It gives a final, strangled pulse of cords before it ceases to work.

“Dude, Asia,” Dean says slowly, eyeing the now exposed metallic guts clinging to Sam’s knife.

“Screw Asia.”  
  
“I can see that.”  
  
Dean has taken a step back, his cheerful mode broke a bit and Sam is at least glad for that. Jesus, they are down to a few weeks, grains of sand through the glass, and his brother wants to sit around whistling while tying his boots like it is all okay. That being in hell would ever be okay.  
  
“Just leave it,” he mutters as he pushes off the covers and goes to the bathroom to get ready. Another Tuesday, another day his brother would die in front of him yet again.  
  
It is like he is the one in hell instead of his stupid hell bound brother.  
  
When his brother tries to come in to do his annoying gargling routine Sam can only scream ‘get out’ around his toothbrush and slams the door.  
  
Breathe, he tells himself. Not real, none of this is.  
  
Not that it helps much, feeling of being out of place just escalating until he fears he will be ripped apart.  
  
Fortunately, Dean chooses this moment to bitch about being hungry and Sam manages to pull his shattered sanity into focus just a little bit more. Like a fracturing stained glass window instead of just shards of glass all over some floor, and he goes out to tell him he’ll be ready in five.  
  


* * *

  
  
The wild sounds and yells all around him are like a vague cacophony that simply serve to clog up his mental process just a little more. Just a little variance that adds to the surreal day that isn’t a day, but an endless loop making it real when looked at through the eyes of madness.  
  
It was quick. Almost all the deaths are here, and his brother is laying, head half-crushed, at his feet, with things that should be inside leaking out. He isn’t even all the way sure what it was this time around. Everything had been a flash-bang of speed and sound, though he swore he thought there was a broken popcorn maker in the mix. One of the industrial ones that had launched from nearby and it is just another check on a long list of areas to watch for. One more mark against Dean making it through the day.  
  
He’s pretty sure his brother’s brains are partially splattered on his boots.  
  
He can’t keep doing this, and he turns on his heel, parting through the sea of curious onlookers who cluck in horror but can’t look away. Amidst the chaos he isn’t noticed, words that are not kind murmured towards what he has lost. Some seed of rage that he has kept so well cultivated and maintained within boundaries pushes out, wanting to treat them to this pain. To lay them bare.  
  
There has to be a way.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Rise and shine, Sammy!”  
  
“Get the hell away from me,” he growls, his brother’s smile flickering into something close to concern. Fingers fumble, finding the off switch on the radio before his brother manages to slide back into his cocksure attitude.  
  
“Sure, don’t want to be around you when you’re this disgruntled.”  
  
With a wave of a hand, Dean finishes tying his boot and makes his way back towards the room’s small bathroom, most likely to do his annoying gargling. That gargling he wouldn’t get to hear ever again once the deal is done and Dean is dragged off. They needed time, not this.  
  
Glancing to make sure his brother is out of sight, he gets his gun, wondering if this works if it would leave him dead, dead, or just out of the loop. Would Dean be forced to sit with his body for the whole day like he sometimes was?  
  
He can send his brother out for breakfast, but even being separated by a room like they are now, there is a high risk that Dean might die in the next thirty seconds due to some freak flossing accident.  
  
The metal’s cold, highly reflective, because if there is one thing his family hammered home it is that one took care of one’s weapons so they could take care of you in your time of need. A bullet is in the chamber, the safety is off. Where ever this sends him had to be better than a daily tour of his own personal, private hell. Anything that isn’t his brother, mangled and dead, until that magic reset button is hit.  
  
“Sam?”  
  
He spins around, gun still in his hand, Dean taking a step back, looking truly worried now. He wonders if his brother has his weapon on him. Thinks he would honestly hurt him.  
  
“I keep seeing you die,” Sam whispers, gun in his fingers as a cautious step is taken towards him. “I’m trapped in a time loop and all you do is die.”  
  
“Okay, Sammy, okay.”  
  
Dean’s there, taking the gun from his hand, something comforting and he chokes on a sob. The sound of the clip sliding out, the slide racking back, the bullet hitting the floor with a muffled thud. He’s being steered towards the bed, Dean staring down at him, hand under his chin, and he breaths out.  
  
His brother is alive. He knows, at this moment this is Dean, his eyes terrified even if his face shows none of it. All he can do is lean forward, pressing his face into Dean’s side, something releasing in him. It’s like he’s a little kid again, sobbing and clutching, his brother’s hand in his hair.  
  
“Going to be okay, Sam,” Dean’s saying. “Gonna figure this out.”  
  


* * *

  
  
After that morning, Sam finds that Dean rarely if ever leaves him alone for more than a few minutes at a time. Annoyingly barging in everywhere, like some unswatable gnat that demands to circle and not leave. As far as he could tell, his brother doesn’t remember, but perhaps some things stay nestled deep in the dark oceans of his mind. Memories cloaked but not entirely sunk.  
  
His laugh is bitter.  
  
“Wanna share?” Dean asks, looking up over his breakfast with worry and something else, some small strange line between his eyes showing unease. Like he knows Sam is unwrapping ever so slowly across a lifetime of Tuesdays.  
  
“Nothing man, just eat already so we can get this over with.”  
  
Those eyes stare at him for a moment longer before being satisfied that Sam means the case. Then Dean goes back to eating like the glutton he is.  
  
Of course, Sam means no such thing, but his voice feels hoarse from all these mornings of trying to explain. They marched to the same inevitability every day, no matter how he keeps Dean close, there’s always something new and different to take his life because one step is changed which opens up a whole web of possibilities.  
  
It’s like looking into an infinity mirror, paths leading off paths and it is crushing that he can’t find the one that doesn’t have death at the end.  
  
Yet, there had to be a way. He only has yet to see it.  
  


* * *

  
  
Dean’s drunk, drink attempting an escape from his glass as his wrist slackens, and looking bright and happy. Sam’s not sure when the last time was that he saw his brother this wasted. Dean wanting to exist in this one moment, not desperate, or afraid, or drowning in grief. It makes knowing the inevitable that was screaming down on top of them so much harder.  
  
“This was a great plan, Sammy,” Dean slurs, lopsided grin stretching across his face. “Why we staying in and drinking?”  
  
“Cause.” Sam shrugs. It had been surprisingly easy to convince his brother that the case wasn’t really a case and why didn’t they just take a day. When really, Sam needs a break from the constant fighting and despair creeping up his throat each time he wakes up here and he’s damn close to breaking.  
  
“K.”  
  
Sam figures he could tell his brother that the sky is purple right now and Dean would happily nod along. His brother is propped up in the other bed, leaning lazily against the headboard. Idly, he wonders if he just pokes his brother if Dean would fall over in slow motion, still joyful.  
  
Lazy humming, and it grates on Sam, that carefree attitude when hell was calling for its fee soon.  
  
“Why’d you do it?” he asks softly, barely able to get the words out.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Sell your soul.”  
  
“You know why.”  
  
“You’re an overprotective jackass? Is that it? The only reason?”  
  
The smile melts off Dean’s face, tugging down the corners of his mouth and eyes. His brother is watching the liquor in the glass now, not looking up. Some part of Sam is close to snapping, hitting, wanting to scream at his brother about being weak. About how Dean couldn’t be alone, that Sammy is weak and needs to be saved or killed and God knows Dean can’t do the latter.  
  
His brother never thought he could do anything, or look after himself. That he always needed those eyes over his shoulder to make sure he didn’t screw it up, make things worse. His fingers squeeze the glass, that old feeling of inarticulate anger over how stupid this all is clawing its way up his throat.  
  
He’d figure it out, a way to get them out of here and out of Dean’s deal. Because he isn’t what his brother thinks – something that needs constant saving from himself.  
  
“Can’t hear you.”  
  
“Cause…” Dean trails off, not answering, and Sam’s about done.  
  
“Are you that emotionally constipated that you can sell yourself but not say why?”  
  
He doesn’t mean to sound so harsh, Dean flinching a little, still not looking up and he wonders why he’s picking this fight. That he can’t be happy with a joyful, drunk brother for the few hours until he dies again.  
  
There’s that driving need to hear Dean say it like he needs to spark the loathing more.  
  
“You, Sammy.”  
  
Confused, he looks up, his brother staring at him like he’s trying to tell him something else and it’s all collapsed on top of him. A soft ‘oh’, that look stripping him down to nothing but his bones, digging him out in ways he doesn’t understand.  
  
This he didn’t see coming, didn’t see when it’s obvious he should have bought a clue years ago.  
  
“We’re brothers.”  
  
Since stating what’s self-evident is apparently all he’s got for this.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, we are,” Dean says, sliding his drink onto the dresser, legs swinging over the side of the bed.  
  
Sam feels paralyzed as his brother gets up, looking at him in a way that’s lost and grieving, a hand patting his shoulder.  
  
“You know what I mean,” Dean says, words tumbling together under the influence of the whiskey. Some kind of pained smile that didn’t suit his brother’s face. “Gonna go take a walk.”  
  
Sam can’t stop him because he doesn’t know if he’s horrified or not. It barely registers when he hears the sound of something falling down the stairs, of people screaming outside and he glances at the clock before downing the rest of his drink.  
  


* * *

  
  
He’s staring, Dean’s normal greeting dies on his lips. Hands paused in mid-boot tying, and Sam’s mind tries to put together last night with this morning. The brother that is annoying and loud and all too much against the one who was lost and wasted, admitting to a secret he’d take to his grave.  
  
“What?”  
  
Sam can’t say anything, wants to say he’s glad to see him. Wants to get up and just hug him. Feel him, know he’s still real, that this is real and last night he must have hallucinated.  
  
“Okay, creeper,” his brother says slowly, finishing with his shoelace. “Shag your ass out of bed when you’re done doing whatever the hell this is.”  
  
A hand is waved at him, his brother going to the bathroom and Sam hears gargling.  
  
It couldn’t be true and Sam feels the great need to go touch to find out if it is.  
  


* * *

  
  
He can’t help but notice how Dean looks at him like he’s trying to memorize him. Sam thinks it is just because he is going to hell before he realizes that Dean has looked at him that way for years. Long before all of this mess, back when dad was still alive.  
  
There’s no way, he tells himself. There’s no way that Dean feels that way, it had to just be drinking and asking stupid questions he shouldn’t want answers to.  
  
Burning the Mystery Spot down in a consecrated fire makes him feel better. Making sure the whole thing goes up like it is slathered in lard makes him feel clean somehow. Until a propane tank that was once unaccounted for went off. The crunchy sound it makes when it impacts Dean's face tells him all he needs to know.  
  


* * *

  
  
Dean has this habit of winking at him, something sly and just his brother.  
  
He never noticed the way his brother sits, tapping his fingers impatiently, but so many times turned towards him.  
  


* * *

  
  
He’s steering Dean away from all the hidden triggers that can and will cause instant death while knowing he may well set off a new one. There’s a way Dean moves when he’s anxious, the little pulls of muscle in his face that give him away if one looks, and Sam’s looking now. Dean seems to shirk under his gaze, confused because he doesn’t remember.  
  
A small flare of guilt. Sam doesn’t mean to make him more on edge, but he doesn’t know how to say something.  
  


* * *

  
  
Dean’s arguing with a squirrel in the park. It's loud enough to bring onlookers. His brother is shaking his fist, holding up a nut that was thrown at him, loud, angry chittering answering from in the branches.  
  
His brother’s crazy has been for a long time. Sam wonders if he was ever sane, ever got the chance to be. Something twists and crumples inside him that Dean never got what he had. That Dean gave everything to him, still does.  
  
As the argument wears on Sam doesn’t try to stop him, doesn’t try to get him to move. He just lets his brother be his brother for a while longer.  
  


* * *

  
  
Those hands are calloused and dry. Sam finds out when he just grabs one. Dean jerks, staring at him, trying to see if he’s been possessed or not on the way to the diner. People are staring and his brother is tense.  
  
Of course, he knows what it feels like to have these hands touch him, he’s just never paid attention to the finer details. What had been stitching him up, keeping pressure to hold in the blood, turning bandages, and adhering tape.  
  
Turning it over, he runs his fingers over the creases, liking the feel before Dean snaps out of it and pulls his hand back.  
  
“Sam?”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
There’s a raised eyebrow like Dean’s seriously considering questioning that but drops it for now. Like there’s ever a later here.  
  


* * *

  
  
Days have blended together and Sam’s lost track of just how many it’s been since Dean dropped that bombshell. It’s become more bearable, knowing that he both loses and gains his brother each cycle. Each day that turns over to repeat he gets a few more minutes as they try to puzzle it out. As far as he knows, Dean isn’t suffering, is unaware of what is happening.  
  
Dean wakes up Dean each day, dies each day, and wakes up again.  
  
Whatever this place is, it seems meant for Sam and Sam alone.  
  
Sam breathes, Dean drinking his coffee and musing about the speech Sam has given so many times that it’s become rote at this point.  
  
“Where’s the best place you’ve ever gotten coffee at?”  
  
Dean starts, blinks at him. “What?”  
  
“Just curious.” Sam shrugs.  
  
“What does that have to do with anything?”  
  
“I can’t ask?”  
  
“It’s weird. This morning has already been freaky enough, Sam.” Dean looks at him. “Sure you’re noggin is okay over there?”  
  
“Yeah. Surprisingly okay.”  
  
“Great. Glad to see that me dying in front of you each day has an effect,” Dean muttered to his cup.  
  
Sam nudges his boot, his brother giving him a slight kick under the table, relaxing a little. It isn’t that he is adjusted, just that he’s found some other things to focus on instead of just the violent ending of each day.  
  


* * *

  
  
Dean’s sitting on a bench, head tossed back, smiling in the sun since they took a moment outside of any visible hazards.  
  
Everything, his whole damn life, is compressed and bent to this point. He knows it, sees it now. All of it, every frustrated word and quiet moment, every time his brother touched him and saved him. Those moments, long hours in the car as Dean popped candy in his mouth and sang along to songs that have carved themselves into his soul. All his annoyances, and petty arguments, and Dean being so much Dean that he has thought he’d lose his mind being in the same room with him all the time.  
  
All of his life burned away, suffocated by just what his brother is.  
  
Dean makes a small sound, eyes surprised, as he slumps down. Sam walks over, turning that head, seeing the eyes already empty and he leans down, pressing his face against the one that is already lost for these minutes.  
  
He understands now, everything that he has run from, as the world goes dark.  
  


* * *

  
  
Asia is blaring again and Sam just rips the alarm clock off the nightstand, cord popping from the socket. Dean’s tying his boots but stops when it clatters to the floor by him. Reaching down his brother scoops it up, turns it over in a rather mournful manner.  
  
“Jesus, Sam, you didn’t have to go mauling the merchandise for song hate. We try to fly under the radar, remember?”  
  
Sam’s just having none of it. It feels like his insides are full of ants crawling through every part of him, twitching and anxious as he stares up at his brother. He slides himself out of bed and it must be the look on his face because Dean backs up some. Unfortunately for his brother, the wall is right there.  
  
“Something I should know?” Dean asks, still holding the wounded alarm clock with its dented corner. He wonders if Dean is about to pull his weapon.  
  
“I need you to listen to me,” he starts, licking his lips because they’re dry and his throat aches.  
  
He needs water and coffee and Dean.  
  
“All ears, Sam.”  
  
“I’m trapped in a time loop where I watch you die every day.”  
  
“Uh-huh.” Dean sounds far from convinced, eyebrows shooting up, face crinkling in such a way to show his displeasure, the belief that it’s all a stubborn nightmare.  
  
Sam’s been watching now long enough to really know those fine movements. To understand what his brother tries to hide but ends up wearing right in front of him.  
  
“On one of these days, you told me something. I need to know if it’s true.”  
  
“What that you’re a priss? Or that you’re seriously freaking me out? Because both of those –“ Dean cuts himself off as Sam reaches out, running his thumb over those lips. They’re soft, softer than the look, with the waxy finish from the chapstick his brother likes. “What did I tell you, Sam?”  
  
There’s an infinity of worry in those eyes, that Sam’s playing him, or pissed, or even worse, that he’s accepting this. Sam knows it.  
  
“You love me.”  
  
Dean rolls his eyes, trying for one of his cocksure grins to divert all this, to take it all in a different direction. Sam watches to see how he takes it, the plea still in those eyes that this stops before it goes too far. He can feel it in Dean, pressed up against the wall, under his fingers. That uncertainty and fear trapped in there and Sam knows it won’t take a big push.  
  
“You’re my brother. Kind of a given, don’t you think?”  
  
“Except you meant it differently,” Sam says, stepping closer and the alarm clock falls out of Dean’s hand with a lifeless thud. “You meant it more like this.”  
  
“Healthy people do not fuck their brothers, Sam,” Dean says, reasonably. Like that was going to be the end of it as Sam is right there now, Dean’s body so tight and taunt against him that it’s almost vibrating.  
  
“Since when are we normal?”  
  
“Sammy, I fucked up somewhere. We aren’t –“  
  
Sam cuts him off again but this time with his mouth. Dean is so unmoving, stiff against his lips that he almost thinks he made a mistake when everything just gives. Hands are dragging him closer and it turns needy. Everything is messy and rough, sloppy, and quick with teeth and tongues.  
  
It feels like all of him has been sucked out when he pulls back, Dean’s breaths are short against him. His brother has a look like he’s drowning, hands still fisted into his tee-shirt.  
  
“Sam –“  
  
“Ssh,” he says, leaning his forehead against his brother’s.  
  
He wants to stay here like this, but he knows something will happen, the wall will collapse or his brother will just up and die in his arms in a few hours and he swallows. He pulls Dean closer, holding on a little tighter because the tide is coming in, it does every day and he can’t outrun it.  
  
“So, I die every day?” Dean asks.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You are uncomfortably at ease with my death,” Dean complains, scratching absently at his shoulder, and Sam figures it’s shock. That if Dean doesn’t die today he is going to have an epic meltdown. “How long has this been going on that it just makes you shrug and go, ‘Oops, not again’?”  
  
“Dunno, months.”  
  
He can’t say that in some ways this hell loop for him keeps Dean out of hell. That if it came down to it, as long as Dean didn’t suffer, he would condemn himself here if it kept his brother out of the hands of demons, screaming until consumed.  
  
“Should probably fix that then.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“So, it’s like the gory version of 50 First Dates.”  
  
“Dude, I cannot believe you even know that movie exists.”  
  
“Chick magnet, that kind of crap.”  
  
Sam glares as his brother smirks around his cup of coffee. At least they made it to the diner this morning. Though he would be loath to admit it, he was getting a kink for giving Dean his first kiss between them each morning.  
  
“Hey, I could order sausage –“  
  
“No!” Sam slinks down, eyes looking in their direction and he clears his throat. “You choke on the sausage.”  
  
“Awesome.”  
  
“We can’t change booths, between exploding windows and a freak knife accident – you know, I prefer the ones without the gushing rivers of blood.”  
  
Dean just stares at him, blinking with worry and the thought that maybe Sam needs a good dose of Haldol right about now.  
  
“So, fill me in on the shorthand version.”  
  
“Don’t think it’s the Mystery Spot at all. The place seems like a total sham, inside and out, and if anybody did disappear there, then it was a human thing.”  
  
He didn’t bother to mention he got a strange satisfaction of just lighting the godforsaken place on fire periodically. His brother had been mortified by his budding arson career on those days.  
  
“Kay. Do we know if someone truly went missing?”  
  
“His daughter’s outside handing out fliers,” Sam says, turning his coffee in his hands. “But –“  
  
“But what?”  
  
“I’m not certain how much of this is a setup and how much is real.”  
  
“Well, can’t say I don’t doubt you don’t have a few loose screws jostling around in there.”  
  
“Thanks,” Sam says, resisting the urge to kick his brother under the table. “Not that. I mean I’m starting to think this is a created reality. Based on a real place, sure, but it’s not real.”  
  
Dean raises an eyebrow, leaning forward. “Like a true blue twilight zone just for little old us. Or maybe just you. It seems to be targeted at you over me.”  
  
“Yeah. Like, I mean we’re past the point where your deal comes due, but you aren’t hearing hell hounds. This whole place seems to revolve around this one point. But it’s massive, way bigger than just like being trapped in a house.”  
  
“Like with an angry spook?” Dean asks, Sam nodding. “Huh, yeah. This does seem to be an entire town. What were you thinking?”  
  
“I thought maybe a trickster, the only thing that marginally fits, given their powers. They can alter reality but this –“ Sam waves a hand.  
  
“Kay. So, what? The grand-daddy of all tricksters that we somehow pissed off?”  
  
“We did gank one. Maybe it’s a revenge kick.”  
  
“Well, this hell hole got a library?” Dean asks, and Sam stares at the table wondering where his mind’s been. “Please tell me that I’m not the first to recommend research here.”  
  
“Uh –“  
  
Dean ran a hand down his face, staring at him with something that Sam was fairly certain was a concern. “After breakfast, we’ll find out.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“I can’t believe you won’t let me have breakfast.”  
  
“You died right afterward yesterday,” Sam says as he walks back to the table.  
  
Dean is slumped down, looking cranky and disgruntled and there is something sweet to how his brother sprawls himself out. The light from a nearby window is hitting him at a good angle, and after a quick look around, Sam reaches out tracing that chin with its fine stubble.  
  
His brother almost pulls away, nervous, apprehensive as he glances around. Like not only will someone see them but instantly know there is a whole other layer of messed up about them.  
  
“Getting pushy.”  
  
“You weren’t complaining this morning,” Sam says, knowing the reasons for that included shock and the privacy granted by four walls.  
  
“Got me by surprise.” Dean’s glaring up at him, a small shake of his head. “What the hell was I supposed to do confronted by a crazed little brother spoutin’ off about –“ Dean waves his hand, helpless, “this.”  
  
“Dean –“  
  
“I took advantage –“  
  
“For fuck's sake, I’m not a child being groped in his Sunday best by some leering perv. You wouldn’t do that –“  
  
“Position of power, Sammy,” his brother cuts him off, still sprawled out in his chair, but he’s tense and there’s so much sorrow in him that it’s seeping out, dripping across the floor, across Sam’s whole damn existence right now. “Took advantage.”  
  
“Don’t flatter yourself. I rejected it when you told me.”  
  
“Fucked up your life.”  
  
“You are my life,” Sam says before he is thinking clearly, Dean jolting a little.  
  
He knows, he knows at this moment that there either he saves Dean or he’s going with him. There’s something almost choking him, Dean’s face more open than it has been for all these years. All that regret, his brother is breathing shallow and Sam just wants to go down and bury his face in his shirt, feel that he’s alive.  
  
Getting to Lilith, killing her, while satisfying, doesn’t erase the doubt that there is a mark on Dean’s soul. That murdering demons isn’t going to get them out of this, and it’s his brother’s soul, not the demons, that he needs to work on to get rid of that beacon. The one that screams, here’s dinner come and get it, to the residents of hell. That their answer lies in that but he doesn’t have any clue what to do to clean that off.  
  
Oh God, if he had a way, he would march on the gates of hell to pull his brother out if Dean had to go. Nothing said he had to stay.  
  
He’s touching Dean again, fingers ghosting down his brother’s neck, the small hollow at the base just visible around his collar as the book slides out of Dean’s hand. A sharp thwack as it hits against the cheap flooring, making them both jump.  
  
“Shouldn’t want –“  
  
“Just stop,” Sam hisses back, watching his voice. “I’m tired of hearing it. If you want a pity party, go find another corner to mope in.”  
  
Dean blinks at him, regaining some composure as he lip curls. His brother is leaning over to get the book and Sam lets his hand drop, rolling his eyes as Dean’s all resettled like nothing has unnerved him at all.  
  
“Guessing we’ve had this argument.”  
  
“A few times,” Sam allows. He doesn’t add how much harder it’s been to make it to mid-morning since things changed. Like things were being sped up but Sam refused to be bossed around by some demented asshole with too much free time and an unhealthy interest in messing with people’s brains.  
  
“How’d I die yesterday?”  
  
“You were squashed against a porno store by a high-speed, out of control dumpster.”  
  
Dean makes a disbelieving noise, corners of his mouth pulled down. “Sure, be all touchy-feely after being so blasé about my repeated deaths.”  
  
“You come back to me every morning. It’s the only way I can do this.” His voice is so soft and he sees something broken and tearing in his brother, a hand on his arm pulling him closer.  
  


* * *

  
  
“So, Loki?”  
  
Dean’s munching on bacon and it’s early morning. The conversations all around them, the movements, Sam knows he can mimic and predict without error.  
  
Though there’s always been something off about this place that has nestled in the back of his mind. Maybe a few more Tuesday’s and he’ll be able to grab onto it and drag it forward.  
  
“That’s what we’ve been thinking.”  
  
A part of Sam wishes he could just make a videotape to explain all this to his brother except everything reset every day. Plus, knowing his luck, it would somehow kill him. Probably explode and Sam manages to hide a smile.  
  
“You okay over there?”  
  
“Yeah, still holding it together. Especially since we’re getting closer.”  
  
Dean grunts, something uncouth, but before Sam can roll his eyes he feels Dean’s foot hook behind his own under the table. Comfort without a public show and Sam smiles a little bit more.  
  
“So, did we have a plan?”  
  
“To summon him. It’s not hard, I memorized it. Just, we need a couple of things and you need to stay alive long enough to perform it.”  
  
“Can’t you just tie me to the bed or something?”  
  
“No,” Sam tells his coffee, mournful over their last attempt at that.  
  
“Christ, okay, we’ll do this, Sam.”  
  
All he can do is nod, and hope that at least today they find the place that sold what they need.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Well this is a fine mess,” a vaguely familiar voice says and Sam looks around. It’s the diner but empty, outside of one form sitting on one of the stools, elbow on the counter, smirking back. “Let me do a slow clap for figuring out my name, though.”  
  
“You,” he growls at the trickster, taking a step forward before finding himself locked in place. “We staked you.”  
  
“Trickster,” Loki says, pointing himself and Sam tries harder to move. “Can’t trick a trickster, Sam. But this little thing you did, Woah boy, not what was supposed to happen.”  
  
“And just what was supposed to happen?”  
  
The trickster leans forward, elbows resting on his knees and there’s something strange in his face that Sam can’t quite name. It isn’t malice or anger or something that he can describe and it unnerves him.  
  
“You were supposed to be letting go of your suicidal brother, not getting inside him.”  
  
“I – just, we – wait. What?” Sam sputters confused and off-balance.  
  
“You can’t save Dean.”  
  
“No,” he whispers, wanting to react more, do anything but his body is still frozen and nothing obeys.  
  
“The way you two keep sacrificing for each other?” the trickster continues sliding off the stool and walking over, looking him up and down. “Just brings blood and pain.”  
  
“I – I’m not going to sit around and let my brother be tortured in hell,” Sam gets out, disbelief bright in him at all of this. Some stupid lesson from a being that probably should be minding his own business. “I know where he’s going, it’s why I can’t let go. What the hell kind of person just lets someone they love rot in hell while they skip around all alive and demon free?”  
  
Something strange passes over that face as Loki looks at him, some weird gymnastics of keeping something hidden.  
  
“When we find the demon –“  
  
“Oh please, spare me the fantasy,” Loki says, waving a hand at him. The god walks around him, Sam can feel those eyes all over him. “Let’s say you numbskulls didn’t lose the magic gun and off the white-eyed queen of the damned. Then what?”  
  
Sam blinks a few times. “What?”  
  
“What then? Do you think you can just raid her super-secret bra safe and have a contract in your hot, oversized hands to light up? Think those things are just floating around the earth like used condoms?”  
  
He wants to protest, wants to tell him that he’s full of crap but inside him, it clicks. It never promised a stop to anything. Like hunting Azazel just brought a hell of a lot more pain and death and all of this onto their heads.  
  
“Not that you’d believe it, but there is literally nothing that you can do that can stop Dean from doing the rumba down under.”  
  
There’s a helpless rage building up inside him and he just wants to scream at the futility of this whole thing. That they are cursed, always cursed and it is always going to end in blood.  
  
“And you’re all concerned about us because why?”  
  
Loki shrugs, watching him with narrowed eyes.  
  
“What is this?” he whispers, and that face loses all interest in trying to retain emotion and falls expressionless. “This isn’t arbitrary. I don’t think you’d do arbitrary even if you were really bored. So, what is this?”  
  
A hand is being raised and Sam fears his memories are being wiped out like Dean’s, he’d lose everything he’d gained. That Dean would die and Sam would never know any of what they had. Those fingers are moving to snap as he got out, “Please, save him.”  
  
“Kiddo, not happening.”  
  
“Don’t let him suffer for me.”  
  
If he could move anything other than his mouth he’d be close to collapse. Instead, all he can do is let out a small broken sound.  
  
Sam can barely hold himself together, realizing that whenever he is brought back from the time loop that they’d be marching back towards Dean’s demise. Some part of him insists that he can find a way, but he knows it a lie now. That this is somehow the truth and his brother is damned.  
  
Loki is close, staring at him in a strange blankness that didn’t seem to suit him.  
  
“Would you let go if he was just dying and didn’t have prepaid ticket to Satan’s playground?”  
  
“Yes, if he was just gone, I’d be able to hope he was somewhere better. That he’s happy. But he traded himself for me, and I can’t, I can’t not try to save him.”  
  
“Or what, Sam? What’s gonna happen when you can’t save Deanie-weenie and the hell hounds rip his meat to last night’s scraps?”  
  
This thing was dangerous, but he still let his eyes fall. It is a decision he came to, understanding now. “I go with him.”  
  
“Sure big bro would be thrilled over that –“  
  
“Doesn’t matter.” Sam’s voice is sharp against the still air, the diner feeling dead with nothing but them in it. “He didn’t ask me, he lost his right to speak up on my poor life decisions.”  
  
“Oh,” Loki says, walking away, something like a laugh but is strange, half-broken. “All of this, and instead of just living, of honoring the wish of the dying you're dropping your price faster than an old whore."

"What do you know?" Sam spits out. "I can't give an empty promise here that I'll somehow make it work. That all those spaces he's in that suddenly become empty I can fill right back up. Sure, I could probably be borderline functional for a little bit, but I'm not stupid enough to not know that I'll fall off that wagon real quick."

This isn't like college and he's at himself that he even did that, didn't even pause one day, and call Dean to see if he was alive. That something so important could have been lost one night a thousand miles away and hadn't given enough of a shit to even find out.

That Sam, he didn't want to be that Sam again and he knows that he'll either be John seeking to kill out of principle and some twisted ideal of love that's really obsession or so lost that he may as well be dead once hell drags his brother off. And it is coming, that cold truth sinking in further, no matter how hard he holds on, bearing down on him screaming and he has no way to fix it.

"Family always breaks your heart, Sam. First to drive in that dagger and twist it to make it bled.”  
  
Sam grits his teeth, tired of being unable to move as Loki looks back over his shoulder, something dark in his smile.  
  
“I get now that there really isn’t living after he dies,” Sam says, the god’s face growing taunt. “Down there, suffering, screaming. It’s hard to sleep now, can’t stop and it hasn’t even happened yet. I mean, for God’s sake I was trusting demons! Looking up some monster in dad’s journal that he put down that maybe knew immortality to see if I could find it to ask questions. To keep Dean from dying at all no matter what, even if he stopped being human.  
  
“It didn’t matter if it changed him from who he is, just that he was alive and breathing. Didn’t matter that he’s terrified or just wanted to spend his last months with me, I dragged him everywhere and if you’re right –“  
  
“I am.”  
  
“Then it was just a waste. A lot of nothing when he could have had something before all that.” Sam swallows, Loki turning all the way towards him. “I get it now.”  
  
“Get what? Cause kiddo, you’ve lost me which is quite a feat.”  
  
“I’m the monster,” Sam says, voice low as the god walks towards him. “It isn’t about saving him, it’s about killing who hurt him. He was right, I am just like John. Thinking he’s weak, did something stupid and I have to save him. Lapping up all the BS that’s fed to me about how much stronger I am than him. Like I could ever tape myself together to get up like him.  
  
“He isn’t weak, he gave everything to me. And I had to let go, just not how you wanted. I had to let go of trying to make him something else and had to start seeing him. I'm just sorry it took my whole damn life.”  
  
“And if Wednesday rolls around and big bro is all alive and decides he doesn’t want to play boink-a-Sam?”  
  
Sam swallows because that’s a real thing that could happen in a snap. That Dean is going to run away, far from the truth and it hurts each time he considers it.  
  
He lets his eyes slip closed, tired and weary of running, of being afraid, of thinking this was ever about saving his brother and if letting Dean be is required then he has to give that too.  
  
“It’s his choice,” he says quietly, his heartbreaking at the thought of rejection, the same he had offered Dean that day. “If he can’t handle it, even as we’re speeding towards the end, I can’t make him give me something like that. It wouldn’t be right – it wouldn’t be real.”  
  
The light is shifting around them, as though it’s sunset and there’s only been a handful of days here that he’s ever seen that. He wants to go outside, be away from the crypt-like feel of a building that only felt marginally real. There’s a thought that outside may not be a thing right now, that they’re standing somewhere far away from a town with folks stuck on repeat.  
  
“You act as though hell wants you,” Loki finally says, staring up at him.  
  
“There’s a lot of ways to die,” Sam answers, holding the look. “And I was already scheduled on the dead list once. Guess I’ll just see what happens after that.”  
  
“I always knew you two knuckleheads were going to be more trouble than you're worth.”  
  
Sam opens his mouth to demand just what that means when he sees the eyebrows waggle, a smirk on that face again. There’s a wink before the snap.


End file.
